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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Beauty of Concealment and Concealment of Beauty Beauty of Concealment and Concealment of Beauty Address by Sister Zahra Rahnavard at the Seminar for Studying Hijab. The Seminar for Studying Hijab was held on Sunday, 16th Dey 1364 (5th January 1986) at Farhang Hall. It was attended by some Members of the Majlis (Iranian Parliament), experts and officials of the Educational Affairs Section, Sector 11, Department of Education, Tehran.

At this Seminar Sister Zahra Rahnavard gave a speech on "Zeebaiye Hijab va Hijabe Zibayi" (Beauty of Concealment and Concealment of Beauty). In view of the unique views, beautiful approach and deep study of the problem, full text of the address is given below. Hijab is like a scenery, a panorama or a garden, a garden full of fruits of different colours.

You can select anyone of the thousands of rooms with thousands of windows, and from its frame look at the garden, stretch your hand and pick off a fruit. You can pick off the entire garden at one and the same time like a single fruit, satisfy with its flavour your heart and soul, and make the garden, the hijab, a solace for your (disturbed) inner self.

Of all the myriad windows through which one can look into the garden, let us have a look at Hijab through the window of beauty, a deep window, a window made of the wood of Sidra (the Lote Tree in the Seventh Heaven) with the scent of eternal memories, a latticed window with variegated glass, illumining your soul with multicolour lustre, a window of beauty of age-long human civilization, a window of centuries old human presence on the earth, or even older, a window dating back to the very age of creation or existence itself, a window of beauty!

The garden and the window, the concealment and the beauty often come close to merge in each other, and sometimes withdraw from each other. Innumerable mysterious and esoteric windows open before this garden. So why should we study Hijab (or concealment) from the angle of beauty? ...Really, why? For example, we can look at Hijab through the window of Imperialism, and sit down and analyze it.